Books, Music and Studies of the Year 2007

This is a list. I am tracking my year of reading, listening, and studying.

Under Books I’m listing books that I’ve basically read straight through or perhaps read “mostly.” Does that last part sound like I’m cheating. Yes, perhaps under one definition of cheating. That would be the third grade, sitting on a stool in Ms. Bowers room and under her steel-eyed glare, saying, “Yes, Mzbowrz, I did read about Guatamalan exports, but I forget,” when really you did not read about Guatamala at all, but sat on your bed the night before with the social studies book on your lap while you traced the pattern of the pine knots of your bedroom paneling with your finger-definition of cheating. See note below for my current definition.*

Also, reading for me is usually done in audio form. I listen to books and agree with author Orson Scott Card who says that listening to books aloud is the best way to read because you can read with your eyes shut and just allow the mind pictures to form.

Under Music I'm listing the music that is important to me. Thus it is heavy on the classical. I will also list other things that I find that strike me as fine. I am also working on a "Requiem Mix" list, just because.

Books

The Last Gentleman—Walker Percy—End of 2006
As I Lay Dying—William Faulkner—End of 2006
Bel Canto—Ann Patchett
The Plague—Albert Camus
The Moviegoer—Walker Percy
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits—Laila Lalami
The Libretto for Tosca
Truth:Four Stories I Am Finally Old Enough to Tell—Ellen Douglas
A Street in Marrakech—Elizabeth Fernea
Secrets of Videoblogging—Michael Verdi and Ryanne Hodson
The Sand Child—Tahar Ben Jelloun (My post on this)
The Abolition of Man—C.S. Lewis (My post on this.)
The Book of Isaiah
The Gospel of John
The Trouble with Poetry—Billy Collins
Lancelot—Walker Percy
Enders Shadow—Orson Scott Card
The Turn of the Screw—Henry James
King Lear—William Shakespeare
Taming of the Shrew—Shakespeare
Cymbeline—Shakespeare
New Southerners—Discussions with and Readings by Emerging Southern Writers from the National Humanities Center
Eugene Onegin and other poems by Alexander Pushkin Translated by Charles Johnson (a.k.a. Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin)
Saving Grace by Lee Smith
The African-American Audio Experience—This set included readings from Langston Hughes, Mikki Giovanni, Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Included was a full dramatized reading of Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.
Year of the Elephant—A Moroccan Woman's Journey Toward Independence—Leila Abouzeid
The Stranger—Albert Camus
Black Boy—Richard Wright
American Hunger—Richard Wright
Much Ado About Nothing—Shakespeare in the Square
Teacher Man—Frank McCourt
At Canaan's Edge—Taylor Branch
The Penultimate Peril—Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler
The Bad Beginning—Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler
Remembering Jim Crow—Stephen Smith, Kate Ellis, and Sasha Aslanian
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination—Toni Morrison
Lemony Snicket—The Unauthorized Biography—Daniel Handler (Which reminded me very much of the graphic work of an unknown Mississippian whose work, Sandusky Review, vol.1, I had on order, but whose distributer, sold out of and is dragging his feet about publishing a second run, believe that or not.)
The Grim Grotto—Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler
More Super Sudoku—(OK so I'm an addict. But I can finally do these things!)
The End—Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler
The Kite Runner—by Khaled Hosseini
Sense and Sensibility—by Jane Austen
The Space Between Us—by Thrity Umrigar
Hamlet—by William Shakespeare
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books—by Azar Nafisi
Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self Help Book—by Walker Percy
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith—by Anne Lamott
The Inheritance of Loss—by Kiran Desai
Lolita—by Vladimir Nabokov
Tears of the Giraffe—by Alexander McCall Smith
The Thanatos Syndrome—by Walker Percy

Music
The things listed here are either CDs or live performances or TV/video/DVD performances

La Boheme—Knoxville Opera Company—Live
Tosca—Leontyne Price—CD
I Puritani—Metropolitan Opera/Public TV Broadcast—Anna Netrebko
The First Emperor—Metropolitan Opera/High Definition Cinema Broadcast—Placido Domingo
German Requiem—Johannes Brahms
War Requiem—Benjamin Britten
Appalachian Journey—Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor
Requiem—Penderecki
Rutter: Requiem—John Rutter
Mozart Requiem
Faure’s Requiem
Mozart’s 25, 40—Mozart Meets Mariner
Nickel Creek—This Side
Bruce Springsteen—Nebraska
Classical Mix from Diane
Portrait of Kiri Te Kanawa
The Chairman Dances—John Adams with the San Francisco Symphony
Eugene Onegin—Tchaikovsky—PBS Broadcast from Metropolitan Opera—Renee Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Liszt Piano Recital—Leif Ove Andsnes—EMI Classics
Il Trittico—Giacomo Puccini—Metropolitan Opera/High Definition Cinema Broadcast
Akhnaten by Philip Glass
the CIVIL warS—a tree is best measured when it is down—ACT V—The Rome Section—by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson
Albert Herring—by Benjamin Britten
The Turn of the Screw—by Benjamin Britten performed by the University of Tennessee Opera Workshop
Requiem—by Roman Maciejeski
Romeo and Juliette—by Gounod—Metropolitan Opera Goes to the Movies with Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna

Requiem Mix

Introitus or Intro—Brahms, Mozart
Introit and Kyrie—Faure
Dies Irae—Britten, Brahms
Pie Jesu—Rutter

Website Experiences

YouTube I Puritani by Bellini—Anna Netrebko sings The Mad Scene
YouTube Nixon in China by John Adams—Mandy Kelly sings I Am the Wife of Mao Zedong

*cheating—reading something or studying something because you "have to" and not because you love it.