The Sunday Salon: 2011 in Review

Merry Christmas, to those who celebrate it—but it’s also the last Sunday of the year, which means it’s time for my top ten list. As usual, these are my top reads of 2011, not the top published books of 2011. But I’ve also added my favorite film adaptation and my favorite audiobook of the year, since I’ve started really keeping those posts up. I was lucky enough to have a good handful of five star books, but that meant leaving off a lot of four and a half star books that I honestly loved off the list. I invite you to rifle through those categories to your right. And here’s 2010 in review and 2009 in review, if you’re so inclined. I think that’s all the housekeeping, so let’s get started.

Review: The Lost City of Z

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

During the first year of The Literary Omnivore (oh, how weird is that to say?), I picked up a lot of recommendations from Paperback Row, a feature in The New York Times Book Review—The Lost City of Z is such a recommendation. Those recommendations tend to fall to the bottom of my reading list, picked up later, when I barely recall what the book is about (which is an adventure all on its own!). But I heard good things about The Lost City of Z and ended up finding a copy at a local thrift store over the summer—the one with the poorer book selection, which is a miracle all on its own. I took it to college with me, but never really got around to reading it until fantasy burnout struck after Narnia Week; then, I desperately needed some nonfiction to act as aloe for my brain, so I picked up The Lost City of Z. There’s something to be said for timing in a read; perhaps because it was just what I needed, it blew me away.

Teaser Tuesday: The Lost City of Z

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

It was the greatest loss of life in the history of the British military, and many in the West began to portray the “savage” as European rather than as some native in the jungle. Fawcett, quoting a companion, wrote that cannibalism “at least provides a reasonable motive for killing a man, which is more than you can say for civilized warfare.”

pg. 187 of The Lost City of Z by David Grann

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your 2 ‘teasers’ in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks!

The Sunday Salon: Burnout

As I mentioned in my last challenge post for Narnia Week, I am burnt out on fantasy. I don’t know if it’s because it’s finals for me (two exams, three papers–one of which is three times the size as the others) or if it’s because I ignored the Cardinal Rule, reading the same genre twice in a row–or eight times in a row, if you’re counting The Chronicles of Narnia individually. It feels… weird.

The Sunday Salon: Moving Day

Today, I am moving back to college. Naturally, I’ve been concerned about packing my school things (do my folders match?) to packing my clothes (how exactly does one say military chic while despairing of the heat?), but I’ve also been concerned about my books. This year, I’m taking a course on Jane Austen, and I now own her entire canon, which feels odd, to say the least. I’m also taking a class on Shakespeare and race, which demands several volumes. And let’s not even talk about my textbook for my pre-1700s English literature course. It’s practically a weapon.

But my main concern is, which books should I take for personal reading?

The Literary Horizon: The Lost City of Z, The Sheen on the Silk

Travel is this week’s theme, as a British explorer loses himself in a quest for El Dorado and a woman travels to Byzantium to clear her brother’s name.