I'm thinking about it. I love the site someone in your GR group linked to: The Joyce Project. I may read the whole book on that site even though my eyes will complain. I like the 12-week schedule, the notes on the linked website and the idea of reading through the comments and questions of the other readers in the group.

Graywolf Press has a translations section in their catalog. I have Edward Hopper Poems: A Bilingual Edition on my to-read list. This morning I started Ted Hughes's Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow , and I plan to start Kafka on the Shore sometime today. I also started Dynamic Characters by Nancy Kress to go along with a Writers' Village course. I ordered a copy of Shakespeare's Richard II for the Shakespeare portion of my 3/5/15 (or maybe still 5/5/15 - I'll have to think about it) and I am also now waiting for copies of One Zentangle a Day, as suggested by Shukriyya, and the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook.

Nan, I can't wait to hear what book you decide to doodle! I love the idea of long-term projects, like those that A. J. Jacobs did for his books, the Moby Dick art book, Calvino's Marco Polo book, and The Honey Month by Amal El-Mohtar, and I'm always hoping something I read, eat, watch, see will inspire me to do a whole series of creations.

Putting The Artist's Way on my to-read list. I hadn't heard of it, so thank you! Happy New Year! :party: :cheers2:

Right - I too am afraid I'll find that by adding drawing I'm trying to do more things than I can really do without Hermione's time-turner. But, I've read/heard more than once the advice that writers should do some creative activity other than writing. Then I read Matthea Harvey's book of art and poetry and read her interview where she said: With “In the Glass Factory,†the acts of writing the poem, listening to Philip Glass’s Quartet No. 5, and taking the photographs were all intertwined. I had five inch-tall glass bottles on my window and when I got stuck on a part of the poem, I’d photograph them. I have thousands of pictures of those bottles. When the wind blew the light blue bottle onto the floor and it broke, I realized that the corresponding glass girl in the poem had to disappear. And that's what made me want to really, really try to fit drawing into my life somewhere. I think one of my reading goals for 2015 will have to be Read Fewer Books. Of course, if I give up on drawing, I will regret the spent money.

:001_wub: *love! The like button just wasn't good enough for how much I like your comment, Rosie. ETA: Oh, it looks like Stacia beat me to it with *hugs*.

Ooh! You read the Ranger's Apprentice books! I read books 1 - 10 with my oldest ds, and it's nice to see another adult who read these.

I got all the books from the library. I had never even heard of Tezuka until I saw this series in the graphic novel section. I did really enjoy the series. It was both entertaining and informative. I got a review of things I had already learned elsewhere and learned new things along with art and some silliness. Plus I just think it's super cool that someone would make a manga series of the life of Buddha. When I think of manga, I think of fight scenes and pretty girls. And this was like - just because it's manga doesn't mean it has to suck. And I was like - oh, cool. My only complaint was that since it was a mix of fact and fiction, there were times when I wished for a footnote/endnote or something to tell me if a particular detail was fact, fiction, or based on fact. I still think it's a great series and I'll definitely try to get my kids to read it.

I'd say a possible drawing partner is worth a six week wait. I'll do some Zentangles and preview the DotRSotB book while I wait.

This morning I finished The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which makes my total for 2014 111 books. Hitchhiker's was fun, offbeat, imaginative, and I wouldn't mind reading the next book in the series sometime when I need another break. My final list: It looks like I only read 24 books by women this year and some of those were series (the Divergent trilogy and the last four Harry Potter books). Hmmm... not so good. *dusty chunky 111. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 110. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy* 109. What Narcissim Means to Me Tony Hoagland 108. If the Tabloids Are True What Are You? Matthea Harvey 107. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair Pablo Neruda 106. Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne 105. Selected Poems Gwendolyn Brooks 104. Blessing the Boats Lucille Clifton 103. Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 102. Moscow in the Plague Year Marina Tsvetaeva 101. The Reptile Room Lemony Snicket 100. On Writing Stephen King 99. The 2014 Rhysling Anthology various authors 98. The Bad Beginning Lemony Snicket 97. Farewell, My Lovely Raymond Chandler 96. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain* 95. Through the Woods Emily Carroll 94. Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth Adrienne Rich 93. The Turn of the Screw Henry James 92. Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice 91.The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems Billy Collins 90. Behind My Eyes Li-Young Lee 89. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows J. K. Rowling 88. At the Mouth of the River of Bees Kij Johnson 87. Winter Numbers Marilyn Hacker 86. Ordinary Genius Kim Addonizio 85. Writers Writing Dying C. K. Williams 84. The Honey Month Amal El-Mohtar 83. The Poem's Heartbeat: A Manual of Prosody Alfred Corn 82. Grave Peril Jim Butcher 81. Ready Player One Ernest Cline 80. Complete Poems Stephen Crane 79. The Illustrated Man Ray Bradbury 78. Lunch Poems Frank O'hara 77. Watchmen Alan Moore 76. Fool Moon Jim Butcher 75. Holy Bible various authors* 74. Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 73. Altazor Vincente Huidobro 72. Storm Front Jim Butcher 71. The Kreutzer Sonata Leo Tolstoy 70. Much Ado About Nothing William Shakespeare 69. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey* 68. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 67. The White Tiger Aravind Adiga 66. Utopia Thomas More* 65. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie 64. The Body Artist Don Delillo 63. The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes 62. And Then There Were None Agatha Christie 61. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince J. K. Rowling 60. Steppenwolf Herman Hesse 59. The Merchant of Venice William Shakespeare 58. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 57. Keeping a Nature Journal Clare Walker Leslie* 56. Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 55. The Outsiders S. E. Hinton 54. The Film Club David Gilmour* 53. Life of Pi Yann Martel 52. Julius Caesar William Shakespeare 51. The Read-Aloud Handbook Jim Trelease* 50. Eight Skilled Gentlemen Barry Hughart* 49. The Road Not Taken and Other Poems Robert Frost 48. How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare Ken Ludwig 47. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix J. K. Rowling 46, News of the World Philip Levine 45. Allegiant Veronica Roth 44. The Book of Nightmares Galway Kinnell 43. The Once and Future King T. H. White 42. The Tempest William Shakespeare 41. Buddha, Vol. 8: Jetavana Osamu Tezuka 40. Buddha, Vol. 7: Prince Ajatasattu Osamu Tezuka 39. Insurgent Veronica Roth 38. Buddha, Vol. 6: Ananda Osamu Tezuka 37. Buddha, Vol. 5: Deer Park Osamu Tezuka 36. Buddha, Vol. 4: The Forest of Uruvela Osamu Tezuka 35. The Devil in the White City Erik Larson 34. The Making of a Poem Mark Strand and Eavan Boland* 33. The Romance of Tristan Beroul 32. Buddha, Vol. 3: Devadatta Osamu Tezuka 31. Divergent Veronica Roth 30. Perceval: The Story of the Grail Chretien de Troyes 29. Buddha, Vol. 2: The Four Encounters Osamu Tezuka 28. Animal Farm George Orwell 27. Buddha, Vol. 1: Kapilavastu Osamu Tezuka 26. The Death of King Arthur Unknown 25. The Beast of Chicago Rick Geary 24. To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 23. Cliges Chretien de Troyes 22. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire J. K. Rowling 21. Civilization and Its Discontents Sigmund Freud 20. Twelfth Night William Shakespeare 19. The Genealogy of Morals Friedrich Nietzsche 18. Paris Spleen Charles Baudelaire 17. Casino Royale Ian Flemming 16. Watership Down Richard Adams 15. The Murder of Abraham Lincoln Rick Geary 14. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 13. Erec and Enide Chretien de Troyes 12. The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 11. Inferno Dante Alighieri 10. Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 9. Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Jean-Jacques Rousseau 8. King Lear William Shakespeare 7. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban J. K. Rowling 6. Lancelot: The Knight of the Cart Chretien de Troyes 5. Education of a Wandering Man Louis L'Amour 4. Yvain: The Knight of the Lion Chretien de Troyes 3. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 2. The Taming of the Shrew William Shakespeare 1. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest Stieg Larsson

This is something that has been on my mind lately. I have been trying to decide whether or not to buy the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook and go through it in 2015. Questions that have kept me from hitting the "buy" button so far: Will I really make time for it? What else will I have to buy once I have the workbook?

My modern poetry starting point was the Coursera course Modern & Contemporary American Poetry. The Coursera site doesn't give a date for a future session, but the University of Pennsylvania MOOCs site says "coming soon."

:iagree: Especially the bolded! The more Murakami the merrier. I checked Kafka on the Shore out from the library a couple days ago, so I'm ready to go! It feels comfortingly cyclical to start another year with Murakami. Although I didn't read 1Q84 until April in 2013, I'm counting it as close enough to the beginning of the year - making this the third year in a row.

Just started looking at the article. It actually keeps going for quite a while after the paragraph you quoted. I finished Anna Karenina by Tolstoy and What Narcissism Means to Me by Tony Hoagland. Then I started in on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - something fun and silly to cleanse the palate after Tolstoy and before Murakami. My favorite poem from the Tony Hoagland book: America Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and BurgerKings, and MTV episodes Where you can't tell the show from the commercials, And as I consider how to express how full of sh*t I think he is, He says that even when he's driving to the mall in his Isuzu Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds Of the thick satin quilt of America And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain, or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade, And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night, It was not blood but money That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills Spilling from his wounds, and -- this is the weird part --, He gasped, "Thank god -- those Ben Franklins were Clogging up my heart -- And so I perish happily, Freed from that which kept me from my liberty" -- Which is when I knew it was a dream, since my dad Would never speak in rhymed couplets, And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes And I think, "I am asleep in America too, And I don't know how to wake myself either," And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life: "I was listening to the cries of the past, When I should have been listening to the cries of the future." But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable Or what kind of nightmare it might be When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise rush past you And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river Even while others are drowning underneath you And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters And yet it seems to be your own hand Which turns the volume higher?

I am enjoying reading about your Christmases and what books you all received! We met with family on Christmas Eve then spent a lazy Christmas at home. We played our new Ravensburger Labyrinth game and Just Dance 2015. I got The Making of a Story and Ted Hughes's Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow. I also got a word-a-day calendar and look forward to cleaning off my desk tomorrow so I have somewhere to put it.

Sorry if someone has already posted this. I came across this list of 2014's Best Indie Fiction and Poetry Books and added some books to my TBR list.

How many books did you read and did you meet your own personal goal? I have read 108 books and hope to finish at least two more. My goal was to read at least 30,000 words, and so far I'm at 34,505 - according to GoodReads. Most thrilling, oh my goodness, I want to read it again, unputdownable book?Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Top 5 favorite stories?The Once and Future King The Great Gatsby Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Mrs. Dalloway Watership Down But once I finish Anna Karenina, that may knock one of these off the list. Which one though? That would be a difficult choice. And for books that aren't stories I would add: The Complete Poems of Stephen Crane If the Tabloids Are True What Are You? by Matthea Harvey How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig On Writing by Stephen King Least favorite book? The Holy Bible New author discovery? New genre discovery?I read many new authors this year. I read two books by Virginia Woolf and look forward to more. Also T. H. White, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, Matthea Harvey, Osamu Tezuka, Hermann Hesse, Henry James - too many to name them all. What countries or centuries did you explore?I seem to remember reading along with the centuries challenge early in the year, but I must have dropped out pretty quick. It looks like I made it to 12th century with Cretien de Troyes 14th century with Dantes 15th century with the Alliterative Morte de Arthur 16th century with Shakespeare 18th century with Rousseau 19th century with Dickens and plenty in the 20th and 21st century. I just missed 13th and 17th. I didn't keep track of countries either and think that would take too long for me to figure out now. One book that touched you - made you laugh, cry, sing or dance.Mrs. Dalloway Are you ready to do it all over again?Yes! Do you have any goals to check out different genres or authors, read translated books or stories in another language for 2015? At this time I have a 5/5/5 goal (and that last five can be the last digit in 2015!) that is as follows: Shakespeare science classic SF short stories WEM novels Also, my library is doing a read-around-the-50-states challenge I might join in on, and I'd like to read many dusty books.

I started another book of poetry What Narcissism Means to Me by Tony Hoagland and I'm 2/3 of the way through Anna Karenina. I'll come back to answer the end of the year questions!

:hurray: Yes!

Well, does anyone want to do another Murakami read-along, or are you all totally over it? Since we read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle this year and 1Q84 last year, I was thinking I would start January with Kafka on the Shore.

Yesterday I finished If the Tabloids Are True What Are You? by Matthea Harvey. The last chunk of the book is a poetry/embroidery series called "Telettrofono" that was originally a "sound walk." Instead of reading it in the book I listened to it here, which I'm particularly glad of since there were sound effects. It's historical fiction/fantasy about Antonio Meucci - inventor of the first telephone - and his wife Esterre Mochi, who was a costume designer and in this poetry series is a mermaid. Warning: the printed text and images aren't presented in the same order as the sound recording. If you listen and want to read along you have to scroll around and/or use the "find" box.

Thanks for the recommendation. I finished Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair and really loved certain lines in each poem, but disliked other lines quite a bit so the poems were all almost amazing to me. I'll have to add Hands of the Day to my to-read list for when I'm ready to give Neruda another try. I also finished Journey to the Center of the Earth, which I thought was mildly entertaining - not bad, but too simple and plotty. I'm not rushing to read more Jules Verne. I'm about a third of the way through Anna Karenina. I love it and just wish I could sit and read it all day every day until I reach the end. I'm also loving, loving, loving a book of art and poetry - If the Tabloids Are True What Are You? by Matthea Harvey. I read an interview with someone from Graywolf Press and decided to look at their catalog and ask my library to buy something they published. After looking at a few poetry books I requested the Harvey book. So far I have read several prose poems about mermaids, like "The Straightforward Mermaid," an erasure made from Bradbury's "R is for Rocket," a couple of free verse poems and a sonnet. Here's an interview with the author that someone linked to in their review on GoodReads. Robin - I joined Writer's Village. Haven't had time to make much use of it yet, but hope to do good work with it over the next year. Thank you for bringing it up here. And finally, some Neruda. Girl Lithe and Tawny Girl lithe and tawny, the sun that forms the fruits, that plumps the grains, that curls seaweeds filled your body with joy, and your luminous eyes and your mouth that has the smile of the water. A black yearning sun is braided into the strands of your black mane, when you stretch your arms. You play with the sun as with a little brook and it leaves two dark pools in your eyes. Girl lithe and tawny, nothing draws me towards you. Everything bears me farther away, as though you were noon. You are the frenzied youth of the bee, the drunkenness of the wave, the power of the wheat-ear. My somber heart searches for you, nevertheless, and I love your joyful body, your slender and flowing voice. Dark butterfly, sweet and definitive like the wheat-field and the sun, the poppy and the water.

We had a fairly unproductive week of fevers and coughs here, so I didn't get much reading done. I did at least finish Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks - mostly another poetry dud for me. My ds decided to give up on reading Journey to the Center of the Earth so my goal is now to finish it as fast as I can and get back to Anna Karenina. I also went to the library today and picked up Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda. from Gwendolyn Brooks' "Appendix to the Anniad" leaves from a loose-leaf war diary: part 2 The Certainty we two shall meet by God In a wide Parlor, underneath a Light Of lights, come Sometime, is no ointment now. Because we two are worshipers of life, Being young, being masters of the long-legged stride, Gypsy arm-swing. We never did learn how To find white in the Bible. We want nights Of vague adventure lips lax wet and warm, Bees in the stomach, sweat across the brow. Now.

I have not. Blessing the Boats is the only Clifton book they have at my library. Good Woman sounds better though. I think I would appreciate some of her poetry more if it were accompanied by memoir. Thanks for mentioning it!

I finished Mrs. Dalloway, which was amazing, and with the completion of this book, I finished my 5/5/5. Yay! As I was reading it I thought of The Body Artist by Don Delillo and wondered if the latter was influenced by the former. Both detail the thousand thoughts, impressions, etc. a person experiences in a moment. I also read Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton. I wasn't into the tone and content of most of this, but liked the style and rhythm. I continue with Journey to the Center of the Earth and I have just started Anna Karenina and Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks. My favorite poem from the Lucille Clifton book: adam thinking she stolen from my bone is it any wonder i hunger to tunnel back inside desperate to reconnect the rib and clay and to be whole again some need in me struggling to roar through my mouth into a name this creation is so fierce i would rather have been born